This disclosure relates generally to a method and apparatus for receiving and selecting a plurality of channels associated with cable and broadcast systems, including but not limited to, for example, digital satellite broadcast systems, terrestrial broadcast systems, and/or cable/digital television distribution systems.
FIG. 1 depicts a conventional receiver 100 for receiving a plurality of channels. For sake of clarity, FIG. 1 depicts the receiver 100 configured to receive four independent channels. In operation, an RF interface 110 is configured to receive an RF broadband signal as input. The RF broadband signal may comprise a plurality of channels. The received plurality of channels may be passed through four identical receiver paths, each of which contain a tuner, a dedicated ADC (analog-to-digital converter), a DDC (digital down converter), and a demodulator. Each tuner 120a, 120b, 120c, 120d selects a desired channel from the received spectrum and converts the selected channel to an output frequency signal, which is then passed to a dedicated ADC 130a, 130b, 130c, 130d that converts the selected channel to digital domain. The DDC 140a, 140b, 140c, 140d down-converts the digital signal received from the ADC and the demodulator 150a, 150b, 150c, 150d extracts the original modulating data from the down-converted signal.
As such, a conventional receiver requires an independent interface between the tuner and ADC, and separate ADCs for each channel received. For example, as depicted in FIG. 1, four receiver paths including four dedicated ADCs are used to receive four channels, thereby increasing the die area required on SoC (system-on-a-chip) to implement at least the ADC function.